Dog Trumpet

As with their paintings, with their mutual love of the seemingly
ordinary and domestic - those houses, holiday shacks, power poles
and muted landscapes - the music made by Chris (Reg Mombassa)
O'Doherty and his brother Peter in Mental As Anything and their
double act Dog Trumpet has always been underestimated.

Liked certainly, loved often (who could argue that Peter's
Berserk Warriors wasn't just about the best Mentals song?)
but that affection has come with the often unspoken addendum: well,
it's fun and that's easy, isn't it?

The mistake some people make is in assuming that if you don't
see the complexity immediately, it isn't there. If the flawed
voices sound short of booming, if the music isn't filled with
tricky constructions, if the lyrics talk about comic books and
pharaohs, then the songs are shuffled along to make way for
something showier. You know, one of those songs that trumpets its
wares so insistently that it can take a while before you notice it
is nothing but an empty coat.

That doesn't happen with the O'Dohertys. The more you listen to
them the more you marvel at how judiciously composed these pieces
are; how clearly spoken are the barbs and how subtle are the little
jokes; how deep the emotions run; and how easy it is to like these
songs. While fixing her breakfast recently, my daughter began,
without thinking, to sing "I must have antisocial tendencies, I
must have antisocial tendencies" and then got on with her
morning.

The album's title track, about not conforming in an age of
creepy conformity, is a typical Chris/Reg song: part nursery rhyme,
part opinion page, part Hawaiian pop tart. There are plenty more
examples like it, such as the sweet story of lonely men, The
Curse of the Walking Dead, the child-like but not childish
Reading Comics and the pricking-kicking of egos in Lord And
Lady Pumpkin, which makes me think of Andy Partridge's
quasi-rustic reveries with XTC in the late '80s.

Peter's songs are much more in the style of Nick Lowe or Ray
Davies, gently burnished pop gems with the kind of easy flow that
takes a lot of hard work and skill to pull off. Some Time walks in
dappled sunshine, Once Too Often works a clever metaphor
inside the dreamy melody and Bloomsbury Birds (with guest
vocalist Bernie Hayes singing gorgeously and Dale Barlow trilling
prettily on flute) effortlessly breaks your heart amid a
country-folk amble.

SPONSORED LINKS

Antisocial TendenciesPopDog TrumpetHalf A Cow20085981173722730262-smh.com.auhttp://www.smh.com.au/news/cd-reviews/dog-trumpet/2007/03/16/1173722730262.htmlsmh.com.auSydney Morning Herald2007-03-16Dog TrumpetBernard ZuelSo many good songs. So much fun.EntertainmentMusicMagpieCDReviewshttp://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/03/16/dohertysmain_070316024459885_wideweb__300x189.jpg